Challenge: After engaging in several successful student enrollment studies with Plan-it, Boston University wanted to develop a prototype study that would provide foundational learning for increasing master’s program enrollments among top-tier candidates and predicting future behavior of enrollees across the BU colleges.

Objective: To develop the optimal marketing platform and supporting messages for Communications and Math/Computer Science program categories and ultimately, drive consideration and interest in these fields.

Solution: Plan-it conducted a two-phased study which included the following:

• Qualitative Exploratory Study, which probed in-depth the overall mindset of BU master’s students and prospective master’s students regarding the decision of where to pursue a master’s degree.
  
• Quantitative Decision Driver Study, which used a conjoint analysis among current and prospective BU master’s students, to confirm the critical factors/messages as well as the combination of factors that will influence/drive a decision to attend BU for a master’s degree.
• Conversion Simulator Model was created to provide BU with the ongoing ability to experiment with varying factors/messaging scenarios, to determine overall impact on the decision to choose a BU master’s program.
  

Result: The results of this study were used to implement strategic changes in messaging across all areas of the graduate admissions process for Communications and Math/Computer Science. Additionally, the template will be applied to related master’s programs across BU.